An extra 229,000 deaths: Is that the cost of US-UK drugs deal?
Key takeaways
- Research finds that pharmaceutical trade deal requiring UK to buy more medicines from US takes away money from other parts of NHS, with deadly effects.
- In December, the UK and US signed a pharmaceutical trade deal, under which the US government agreed not to impose tariffs on UK pharmaceutical and medical technology exports for the next three years.
- In return, the British government committed to increasing NHS spending on new US medicines from 0.3 percent in 2026 to at least 0.6 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) by 2036.
Why this matters: an international story with cross-border implications worth tracking.
Research finds that pharmaceutical trade deal requiring UK to buy more medicines from US takes away money from other parts of NHS, with deadly effects.
xwhatsapp-strokecopylinkgoogle Add Al Jazeera on Googleinfo US President Donald Trump, right, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer attend the G7 summit in Evian-les-Bains, France, on June 16, 2026 [Christian Hartmann/Reuters]By Edna Mohamed Published On 2 Jul 20262 Jul 2026Research published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) has found that a United Kingdom-United States pharmaceutical deal could cause 229,000 excess deaths as a result of the diversion of billions of pounds away from Britain’s National Health Service (NHS).
In December, the UK and US signed a pharmaceutical trade deal, under which the US government agreed not to impose tariffs on UK pharmaceutical and medical technology exports for the next three years.